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Portfolio.hu reported great news about the inauguration of five new smart lamp posts in Budapest on Tuesday. Hungarian companies developed them and each of them can perform different tasks.

No wonder that Budapest is among the smartest cities with these new lamp posts. They are not the first smart lamp posts in Hungary (for example, there are some near Mammut Shopping Centre), but it is the first time that five posts have been grouped.

Each has their own talent

The group of lamp posts are located in district nine, at Lechner Ödön fasor. They include different information- and energy technology-related tools and provide a digital infrastructure. The lamp posts are equipped with LED lights and offer the following services:

Free WiFi

Emergency button and public surveillance camera on two of the posts, connected to the local public place control, with IP-based phone background

LED Information panel / Digital advertising surface function on four of the posts, with the possibility to advertise with videos and have the content updated or downloaded remotely in real time

Two posts have electric-car chargers, that can be operated with smart phones and signal the level of charging

Last but not least, one post has environmental sensors making precise meteorological measurements (temperature, humidity, and the level of dust, UV, CO, CO2 and NO2 in the air)

A car charging at the smart lamp post. Photo: MTI/Máthé Zoltán

Hungarian background

The lamp posts were developed by Hungarian companies.

Elmű-ÉMÁSZ (Budapest Electricity Works – Northern Hungarian Power Supplier) came up with the idea and invested in the project, while BDK (Budapest Public Lighting) is the owner of the posts and as the operator of public lighting is both an investor and a financial partner. The company Hofeka produced the posts, and NETvisor gave the IT background and support.

Vodafone runs the internet connection and the optical connections to make the services available. This includes the network for the free WiFi, the managing of authorisations, content filtering, as well as the internet access of the LED panels or the sensors, and the data network for the phone and the surveillance cameras. As far as the advertisements are concerned, the first ones are expected to appear in September, and Vodafone will be one of the renters.

The project is part of a one-year-long program to modernise by BDK, in which they will change old lamps into LED lights.

It is an experimental project, costing 50 million Forints, aligned with the smart city conception. The lamp posts are believed to form a stable basis for further smart city solutions and can later serve as a reference.

These posts are also updateable to meet the needs of tomorrow.

Therefore the project includes the installation of new tools, the maintenance and development of hardware and software equally.

Both the Budapest Municipal Council and district council supported the project, and Péter Kaderják, State Secretariat for Energy and Climate Policy at the Ministry of Innovation and Technology also attended the inauguration.